Growing In Maturity*

Growth and maturity are normal and natural phenomena that all of us experience throughout our lives. We have all experienced four key stages of growth and development: infancy (birth to 2 years old), early childhood (3 to 8 years old), middle childhood (9 to 11 years old), and adolescence (12 to 18 years old). These stages are all necessary and appropriate, but none of us would desire that a child stays at any one period of development.

As a family ministry we must also go through necessary changes to meet the challenges of becoming a Family Ministry families thrive in. As we mature, our team’s capacity to accomplish our vision will grow. As our ministry capacity increases the lives of many more families will be forever impacted.

Below, we will take a look at two stages of maturity that outline what our team will experience as we grow from one stage to the next.

Important Terms

Below are a few terms and their definitions that you will need to be acquainted with.

Standard: specifications for the characteristics of an environment or staff/volunteer role. A good example of a standard is the expected quality, performance, or attitudes of a volunteer team.

Process: a set of interrelated or interacting activities which accomplish goals.

Procedure: a specified way to carry out an activity or a process.

The difference between processes and procedures can be summed up as breadth and depth. A process defines the big picture and highlights the main elements of our church–breadth. A procedure captures those elements and adds more information (step-by-step details) for functional responsibilities, objectives, and methods–depth

Capability Maturity Stage 1

For the most part, our processes are ad hoc and chaotic. As a Family Ministry department we struggle to provide a consistent and stable experience for staff, volunteers, and families. Success often depends on the competence and heroics of individuals in our church and not on the use of proven processes.

We lead environments and activities that work; however, they frequently exceed the budget and staff/volunteer bandwidth. We have a tendency to overcommit, abandon processes in the time of crisis, and are not be able to repeat our past successes.

Capability Maturity Stage 2

We lead all of our environments and activities using processes that are planned, performed, and measured. When experiencing times of stress, we do not abandon existing practices. As a result our environments and activities run according to their documented plans.

As we work towards our goals the benchmarks, standards and processes are visible to leaders at defined points. Our commitments have been clearly communicated to staff, volunteers and families. We are committed to excellence by intentionally reviewing and refining our processes, standards and procedures.